TRD Pro: Biggest hotel sales of the past year

Sonesta International Hotels’ $324M portfolio acquisition tops list

Sonesta Hotels’ John Murray and The Shelburne Hotel (Illustration by Kevin Cifuentes for The Real Deal with Getty Images, Affinia, Sonesta)
Sonesta Hotels’ John Murray and The Shelburne Hotel (Illustration by Kevin Cifuentes for The Real Deal with Getty Images, Affinia, Sonesta)

The following is a preview of one of the hundreds of data sets available on TRD Pro — the one-stop real estate terminal that provides all the data and market information you need.

UPDATED Nov. 29, 2022, 5 p.m.: New York City’s hotel industry bounced back with gusto after 9/11 and the Financial Crisis seven years later, so it’s no surprise that some investors bet it would do the same after the pandemic crippled it from 2020 into 2021.

Especially if they could get premier properties at a discounted price.

The Real Deal analyzed hotel sales using a combination of sources to determine the most expensive ones recorded from Oct. 1, 2021, through October of this year.

Sonesta International Hotels’ purchase of four hotels in April for $324.3 million emerged on top.

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Sonesta bought the Benjamin Hotel, the Shelburne Hotel & Suites, the Gardens Suites Hotel and the Fifty Hotel & Suites from Denihan Hospitality Group. The deal amounted to nearly 600,000 square feet of gross floor area.

Ramsfield Hospitality Finance issued a $239 million acquisition loan to the Massachusetts-based company.

The second-largest deal was for the Sheraton New York Times Square at 811 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. MCR acquired the 51-story, 1,780-key hotel from Host Hotel & Resorts for $323.6 million.

The reported sale represented a more than $400 million loss for the seller, which had purchased the property in 2006 for $738 million.

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MCR has been on a hotel-spending spree, building its count of lodging properties to 140 across the country. The Sheraton in the Theater District is one of the city’s largest hotels by room count. In 2020, MCR acquired the Royalton Hotel for $40.8 million and then spent $185 million the following year in a joint purchase for the Lexington Hotel.

Third on the list is Sam Chang’s $166.5 million sale of the 25-story, 180,000-square-foot Hyatt Place at 350 West 39th Street in Manhattan’s Garment District.

Chang wasn’t done.

His McSam Hotel Group also sold 100 Greenwich Street to Concord Hospitality, transferred 70 percent of his ownership of the 320-key hotel at 525 Eighth Avenue and parted with 338 West 39th Street for a total of $147.9 million.

Speaking of Concord, the CEO, Mark Laport sold 30 West 46th Street for $88.5 million in the fifth most expensive hotel sale of the past 13 months.

The sale of the 21-story, 126,000-square-foot hotel came shortly after Concord purchased 100 Greenwich Street from Chang for $69 million. The transaction date fell just outside this ranking’s time frame.

The fourth priciest deal was investment firm RLJ Lodging Trust’s sale of DoubleTree hotel at 569 Lexington Avenue to Hawkins Way Capital for $146 million.

RLJ took a significant hit on the sale after purchasing the hotel in 2010 for $332 million, according to property records.

Checking in at No. 6 is 125 West 26th Street’s Holiday Inn. Watermark Capital’s head of transactions Brendan Medzigian signed over the 226-key hotel to Two Kings Real Estate and its principal Christopher Wang for $80.3 million.

According to reports, the seller fell behind on mortgage payments in 2020 and the note was transferred to a servicer. The hotel’s cash flow went negative after occupancy dropped from over 90 percent in 2019 to 54 percent in 2022.

This article has been revised to include the sale of the DoubleTree at 569 Lexington Avenue.